3 Responses

I read Angela’s Ashes. As I remember it, this guy had a rotten childhood. Really dismal. Drunken father. I hope I’m remembering correctly.

The book challenges some assumptions about schools. The Catholic teachers were pretty mean, and were otherworldy in that they did not feel sorry for McCourt or the other kids in his shoes, and there were a lot of kids in the same shoes.

Today, schools are told to be relevant to kids’ lives. For McCourt, these schools provided an escape, an out, from his messy family life.

It was the schools’ irrelevance and their strength that made the schools work for him.

The parochial schools took him out of his world, which is very Irish in its romanticism.

(I love the Irish. When I visited there years ago, I remember them cussing a lot. My ancestors are Scottish, similar but a little more straightforward, less romantic.)

Angela’s Ashes was great. Tis was also good, but not as strong. If you read those two, you should read Teacher Man to find out how it all turns out. It has some great moments, but I remember thinking it didn’t have nearly the impact of his first book. He shows how important experience and talent are in the teaching profession, a point lost on many in charge of schools.